Sam Yorty, the maverick Los Angeles mayor whose politics skated the political spectrum from Upton Sinclair to Richard Nixon, was hailed as the man who steered Los Angeles through the turbulent 1960s.

"He was the one that recognized that L.A. was thought of as a bunch of suburbs in search of a city," Mayor Richard Riordan said Friday. "And what Sam did was bring these suburbs together where togetherness made for strength and made for love."

Former Yorty press deputy Yet Lock remembered his one-time boss for being the first Los Angeles mayor to have an integrated staff that included Latinos, blacks and Asian Americans. Mr. Yorty was also first to appoint a woman as deputy mayor, Lock said.

Mr. Yorty died at his Los Angeles home Friday after suffering a stroke last month. He died of pneumonia, a complication of the stroke, said Dr. Julius Woythaler. He was 88.

Mayor of the nation's second largest city for three terms, from 1961 to 1973, Mr. Yorty presided over that city's most violent era, capping one of the nation's most quixotic political careers ever.

Mr. Yorty, born Samuel William Yorty in Lincoln, Neb., entered the race for Los Angeles mayor in 1961, a year after he had endorsed Richard M. Nixon over John F. Kennedy for president.

But Mr. Yorty, one of the first major politicians to exploit the power of television, won anyway - winning the support of suburban housewives by opposing an ordinance requiring that tin cans be separated from other trash and of blacks and Mexican Americans by opposing the

"downtown ruling clique" of business leaders, the Los Angeles Times and Herald Examiner and other "white" interests.

Narrow margin&lt;

The upset victory was by only 16,000 votes from more than a half million cast.

He became the first Democratic mayor of Los Angeles in 40 years, although the position was nominally nonpartisan.

Then the third largest U.S. city, behind New York and Chicago, Los Angeles was still saddled with an archaic governance system and what many considered the most racist police department in America. The new mayor undertook to modernize the bureaucracy, which further alienated him from the entrenched establishment, but in many areas, he succeeded.

He lowered property taxes and brought in new industry, and when he ran for re-election in 1965, the Times and others in the downtown clique were behind him. That time, his winning margin over six other candidates was a quarter of a million votes over his nearest opponent, James Roosevelt.

Familiar face during riots&lt;

During the Watts riots in the summer of 1966, Mr. Yorty's face and voice became known nationwide as he and federal officials exchanged blame.

Federal officials claimed he didn't cooperate with their plans for averting ghetto riots, and he said the feds contributed to the unrest by raising expectations of minorities without doing anything to fulfill them.

State officials - namely Democratic Gov. Edmund G.

"Pat" Brown - were just as culpable, Mr. Yorty said, further alienating him from the party establishment.

Mr. Yorty grew up poor in Lincoln, Neb. After high school, he moved to Los Angeles, where it took him more than 10 years to earn a law degree at Southwestern University, UCLA and UC Extension.

He supported himself through a variety of jobs before entering politics in 1933. He ran for office the first time in 1936, as a Democrat but with the support of Sinclair's EPIC (End Poverty in California).

New Deal politician&lt;

He won a seat in the state Assembly, where he earned a reputation as a pro-union liberal and sponsored bills to liberalize divorce laws, increase old age pensions, create state-owned utilities and other New Deal-like measures.

After his re-election he swerved to the right, sponsoring creation of the nation's first state un-American activities committee to root out Communists in government, and investigating claims of spying by Japanese fishermen. "I just don't trust Communists," he said frequently.

He interrupted his tenure in the Assembly to join the Army Air Corps. He served in the South Pacific during World War II as an intelligence officer.

Mr. Yorty, who also served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, had a long history of losing campaigns, starting with his bid for the Los Angeles City Council in 1939. He failed in later campaigns for governor and the U.S. Senate, and eventually became so estranged from the Democratic Party that he joined the GOP.

Flamboyant mayor&lt;

As mayor, Mr. Yorty used his flair for television - a mixture of sophisticated intelligence and good-ol'-boy wisdom - to launch "The Sam Yorty Show." It was one of the most popular shows in the Southland for awhile.

Tom Bradley, then a city councilman, ran unsuccessfully against Mr. Yorty in 1969.

The flamboyant Mr. Yorty again angered blacks and liberals by accusing blacks of usually voting for members of their own race. Bradley was elected mayor in the next election, and Mr. Yorty left politics for good.

Mr. Yorty's first wife, Elizabeth "Betts" Hensel, whom he married in 1938, died in 1984. Their son, William, died in 1983. He is survived by his wife, Valerie King Yorty, and two granddaughters. There will be no services.&lt;